Ghana Removed From EU’s Blacklist Of Money Laundering Countries

Ghana has been delisted from the European Union’s listicle of countries that are hotbeds within a global axis of money laundering.

The EU’s Financial Action Task Force announced the delisting in a statement on Friday, the 25th of June, 2021.

“Ghana is therefore no longer subject to the FATF’s increased monitoring process. Ghana will continue to work with GIABA to improve further its AML/CFT regime”, the statement partly read.

It explained that Ghana has since made significant progress in improving its AML/CFT regime and that the country has addressed related technical deficiencies to meet the commitments in its action plan regarding the strategic deficiencies that the FATF identified in October 2018.

The EU had blacklisted Ghana along with other countries including Botswana, Mauritius and Zimbabwe over looseness that made them hotbeds and conduits for money laundering in May 2020. 

“Under the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD), the commission has revised its list, taking into account developments at the international level since 2018 and that the “new list is now better aligned with the lists published by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force),” the announcing statement had said.

Other countries blacklisted were the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, along with Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Panama.